


A Question of Loyalty

by luminality



Series: The Oblivious Misadventures of Lt. Jean Vicquemare [1]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, because everyone needs an emotional support Trant, especially emotionally constipated Jean, oblivious!Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26726338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminality/pseuds/luminality
Summary: JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Other people have left too. Good, smart people. People we won't get back. Only me and this *really patient* patrol officer are still here. And Trant—because I'm *forcing* him to stay."As it turns out, that last part might not necessarily be true.(Set before the events of the game.)
Relationships: Trant Heidelstam/Jean Vicquemare (pre-slash)
Series: The Oblivious Misadventures of Lt. Jean Vicquemare [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950841
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	A Question of Loyalty

When Trant Heidelstam steps into the C-Wing on an overcast Friday morning, he’s greeted by the unmistakable feeling that something is terribly, terribly wrong.

Well—He glances at the teetering pile of detritus on Lieutenant Double-Yefreitor Harrier Du Bois’ desk. More wrong than usual, at least. 

He makes his way towards his table while trying to pinpoint the source of his unease. Everything seems normal enough—Chester and Torso are at their desk, playing a game of cards on top of a stack of unsolved cases. Judit looks up from her typewriter and gives him a small, anxious smile, which has been growing smaller and more anxious each day. Harry's nowhere to be found, though he’ll probably barge into the office around noon, high as an aerostatic and reeking of whiskey. And Jean...

Trant stops.

“Excuse me, Jude,” he says, without taking his eyes off Jean’s unoccupied desk. “But is Vic here yet?”

Judit blinks at him. “Oh. Yes, he’s here. But...”

Her face falls. Trant’s stomach sinks along with it.

“He’s talking to Guillaume,” she says, glancing at the small meeting room at the far end of their work space. “They’ve been in there for an hour already.”

Trant looks apprehensively at the closed door. An accomplished police reporter whose nose for intrigue was as sharp as his fashion sense, Guillaume “G-Bevy” Bevy was the only other civilian member of the C-Wing aside from Trant himself. At this time in the morning, Guillaume would usually be perched on Judit’s desk, pestering her for juicy tidbits about her latest case while she pointedly ignored his questions.

His absence, together with Jean’s, shouldn’t be alarming. They might just be having a touchbase meeting. Or, more likely, Jean might be scolding Guillaume for that unflattering feature article that he’d written about how Torso and McLaine had handled (or botched) the VIOLENT VIOLINIST case.

But somehow, Trant can’t help but feel that whatever’s happening behind that closed door right now is much, much worse than a mere scolding.

Stifling his anxiety, he parks himself at his desk and settles down to work. He has a couple of psychological profiles due this week, plus that paper on the potential applications of the Orbis programming language on neurolinguistics that he’ll be presenting in Graad next month. Plenty of things to distract himself from Jean and Guillaume’s unusually long meeting...

He takes out his notebook and skims through his notes on the STRANGLED GOURMET case. Based on the autopsy, the murderer probably had a grudge against the victim, given how deeply the garrote had dug into her neck...

He drums his fingers on his desk. 

Transference could be a likely explanation, he thinks, easing back into his chair. The suspect might have projected their violent emotions against a female figure—a wife, or maybe a mother—onto the victim...

He glances at the door.

 _Any moment now_.

The door stays closed.

Disappointed, Trant goes over his notes again.

And again.

And again.

Then, just as he's about to throw in the towel and start pacing in front of the meeting room like a nervous husband waiting for the birth of his child, the door finally opens.

Any hopes that Trant still harbored about the nature of that meeting are promptly dashed when he sees Guillaume.

There are a few things that Trant's learned to count on ever since he began working at the C-Wing: Harry's always going to be drunk. Jean's always going to be in a bad mood. And Guillaume's always, always going to have a cheeky smile on his face.

But Guillaume isn't smiling right now. 

Trant clears his throat.

“Good morning, Guillaume! How are you doing today?”

But the reporter doesn’t seem to hear him.

Instead, he takes a cigarette from his pocket, lights up, and heads for the exit. 

"See you around, folks," he murmurs, smoke wafting from his mouth like exhaust. 

As the doors swing shut behind Guillaume, Chester takes it upon himself to ask the question that's on all of their minds. 

“The fuck was that about?” 

Mack shrugs. “Boss probably chewed him out for talkin’ shit about us in the papers.”

Trant looks back at the meeting room, half-expecting Jean to stumble out of it and shout at them to get back to work.

Unfortunately for him, Jean does no such thing.

Suddenly, he feels three pairs of eyes staring at the back of his head...

He sighs.

"Alright. I'll go check on him."

He's not sure when it started. Maybe the unit took a vote while he wasn't around, or maybe the universe is just making him pay for all of the sins that he committed during his ah, "wayward" past. But somewhere along the way, he's become the C-Wing's designated appeaser (or "human sacrifice," as Chester likes to call it) whenever Jean was in one of his darker moods—which, to his dismay, has been happening more and more often lately.

But Trant doesn't mind taking on this role at all. He genuinely enjoys Jean's company, so he's more than happy to offer himself up, so to speak.

But it doesn't make facing Jean less terrifying.

...Or less painful, for that matter. 

He walks up to the meeting room door and raises his hand to knock...

But then, he hesitates. 

_Come on, Special Consultant Backpedal ,_ he can almost hear Jean saying. _Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now._

 _I’m not_ , Trant replies.

He knocks twice.

“Jean?”

No answer.

He knocks again, louder this time.

“Jean? It’s me, Trant.”

Jean’s muffled voice filters through the door. 

“Fuck off, Heidelstam."

He sounds tired, Trant notes. Tired, and hurt too.

"Are you—" He clears his throat. "Are you alright? Guillaume just left, and I thought..."

He pauses, unsure of what to say next.

"Can I come in?" he asks. 

_He'll tell me to fuck off again_ , he thinks. _Or he'll open the door, shout at me, then slam it in my face._

Jean doesn't reply.

Then, Trant hears something that sounds like a sigh.

"Fine. Come in."

Trant can't believe what he just heard.

"Oh. Alright."

He looks back at his colleagues. Chester raises his eyes to heaven and crosses his lungs. Mack slowly draws his thumb over his own throat. Judit gives him a firm nod. 

Slightly consoled by this strange show of support, Trant opens the door and steps inside. 

Just like most of the rooms in the precinct, this one is small, cramped, and dingy. A whiteboard—though it's more of a grayboard now, Trant thinks to himself—covers the entirety of one wall, while a long table occupies the center of the room. Most of the Major Crimes Division's meetings usually start with a mad scramble for the seat closest to the exit, since sitting anywhere else meant that you were trapped there for the duration of the meeting, regardless of how full your bladder might get. 

Jean's sitting in that very chair right now with his head buried in his arms, looking for all the world as though he were suffering from the most devastating hangover in the whole history of Elysium. 

"Close the fucking door, will you?" he mutters.

With the circumspection of a zookeeper entering a lion's den, Trant closes the door and gestures to the empty chair beside him.

"May I...?"

Jean grunts.

Taking that as a yes, Trant takes his seat.

 _Don't say anything_ , he reminds himself. _Don't try to lighten the mood. Don't make small-talk._

_And do not—under any circumstances—share any trivia._

And so for the next few minutes, Trant just sits there quietly and waits for Jean to speak.

His patience is rewarded by a heavy sigh. 

"Guillaume left," Jean says, his face still buried in the crook of his arm.

Trant nods. "Yes, he left at around—"

"No, Trant," Jean growls. "Guillaume fucking _left_."

Trant stares at the grayboard. 

"Oh," he whispers, aghast. "I see."

Jean finally sits up, Trant is shocked to see how _old_ he looks, as if he'd aged two decades in the past two hours.

"Should've seen it coming. He's been fighting with Harry more often. Been bitchier than usual too," Jean says.

_Harry_ , Trant notices. _Not shitkid_. 

"None of us saw it coming, Vic. If we did, we would've tried to—"

"Tried to what? Stop him? Tell him to stay?" Jean snorts. " _Bullshit_ , Trant. We _all_ want to leave. Guillaume just had the fucking balls to actually go through with it."

Silence stretches out between them.

"...Shit." Bowing his head, Jean rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Sorry. I didn't mean to—"

Trant smiles. 

"It's alright," he lies. "No harm done."

Jean looks at him with red-rimmed eyes, and he looks so exhausted, so _defeated_ , that Trant can't help but forgive him.

But apparently, he let his guard down too soon, because nothing—absolutely _nothing_ —could have prepared him for what Jean says next. 

"You should leave too, you know."

Trant frowns.

"Excuse me?"

"You should leave too," Jean repeats, his face somber. "Take Mik. Go to Konigstein. Mirova. Sur la Clef. Anywhere. Just get away from this—" He waves a hand vaguely around the room, "this fucking _hellhole."_

Trant's not sure whether Jean's talking about Revachol or the C-Wing.

Probably both, if he had to guess. 

He takes a moment to think about it.

"If I left," he says carefully, "would you come with me?"

This time, it's Jean's turn to frown.

"What?"

"Come on, Vic." Trant leans towards him. "You're an excellent police officer with a superb track record. Any law enforcement agency would be glad to have you. It'll be a fresh start for the both of us—"

He stops when he sees the look on Jean's face.

"But you're not willing to leave," Trant says quietly. "Are you?"

Jean doesn't answer.

_Why?_ Trant wants to ask. _Why do you want to stay, even after everything that he's done to you?_

But since he's not cruel enough to ask that, he swallows down his indignation and plasters an apologetic smile on his face.

"I'm sorry. That was unkind of me to say."

Jean shakes his head. "No. It's...It's fine."

They sit in silence again.

"Do you want me to leave?" Trant asks quietly. 

Jean keeps his eyes trained on the grayboard.

"What do you think?" 

Trant's smile becomes genuine. 

_Always so stubborn_ , he thinks to himself. 

“I'd like to stick around, if you don't mind. Somebody has to keep an eye on your blood pressure, after all.”

Jean scoffs. “I’m not a fucking septuagenarian, Heidelstam. And last I checked, you’re not a fucking nurse.”

Trant shrugs. “I’d like to stay anyway.”

Jean gives him a sidelong glance. 

“Whatever," he mutters. "It's your fucking funeral."

Still smiling, Trant relaxes into his chair. 

"Would you like to grab dinner tonight? My treat."

Jean frowns. "Didn't we just go out for dinner a couple of nights ago?"

For a detective, Trant thinks, Jean sure can be dense sometimes... 

"I understand. You must be getting tired of listening to me prattle on and on and on about random people and events of cultural and historical significance—”

Jean rolls his eyes, but he's smirking. 

“Me? Getting tired of your trivia bombs? Perish the thought. If anything, you're the one who should be getting tired of me and my winning personality."

Trant looks at him fondly.

"I'd never get tired of you, Vic."

To his utter delight, Jean turns bright red.

"We uh." Jean coughs and stands up. "We'd better go tell the rest of the squad about Guillaume."

Trant stands up too. "Right. They must be wondering what's taking us so long..."

He heads for the door--

"Trant."

He looks back. 

"Yes?"

Jean glares at the floor for a few seconds.

"Thanks," he eventually says. "For staying, I mean."

Trant smiles.

"You're welcome, Vic."

_Anything for you,_ he doesn't say.


End file.
